Rhino + AgentSync Manage

Rhino is changing the way renters and property owners handle security deposits, making renting more affordable and within reach for many American families. As an insurtech startup, Rhino is no stranger to using modern technology to make people’s lives and jobs easier. Still, the company had been paying multiple vendors to manage its producer and adjuster compliance in more manual ways and with less-than-ideal results.

When experienced compliance manager Lisa Ruzzi joined Rhino, she made the case for replacing multiple incumbent vendors with one simple solution for all of Rhino’s license compliance needs.   

Since going live with AgentSync, Rhino has: 

• Eliminated multiple third-party compliance management vendors to improve operational efficiencies; 
• Saved money by managing license compliance in-house, faster and more easily than before; and 
• Replaced manual and repetitive data entry with the capability for producers, adjusters, and internal staff to enter information one time, in one place. 

“For anyone considering AgentSync, I’d say everything – from the number of things you can do in the platform to the support, to the dashboards and reporting capabilities, the ability to see things visually at a glance – it’s great. You absolutely get your money’s worth.”

Lisa Ruzzi, Compliance Manager at Rhino

New company, same struggles

Compliance Manager Lisa Ruzzi is no stranger to the challenges of insurance compliance management. Regardless of the company, regardless of the lines of business or the states producers and adjusters are licensed in, the process of applying for insurance licenses has long been known as a manual, tedious, and slow one. 

Whether it’s new licenses or renewals, Ruzzi has spent more than her fair share of hours bouncing between the NIPR website, state insurance websites, internal documents and spreadsheets, and emails requesting various pieces of information from license applicants themselves.

For Ruzzi, this compliance management nightmare ended when her previous insurance employer implemented AgentSync. So, when she changed companies and found herself once again in the middle of licensing chaos, Ruzzi made the obvious move and fully overhauled how Rhino leveraged its existing AgentSync subscription. 

When compliance vendors fall short 

“When I started at Rhino, we had other outside companies managing licenses and renewals for us. In multiple cases, licenses on their renewal docket were about to lapse. It was extremely frustrating to be paying them money and still have to wonder if things might slip through the cracks or incur late fees.”

Lisa Ruzzi, Compliance Manager at Rhino

Lisa Ruzzi is a meticulous person with the attention to detail required to keep an insurance agency’s compliance train on the tracks. Despite Rhino’s investment in different outside services to manage its producer and adjuster license applications, renewals, and ongoing management, Ruzzi still spent time spot-checking the results to satisfy her own need to stay on top of everything. 

And it’s a good thing she did! In more than one case, Ruzzi’s audits uncovered licenses past the typical renewal application window (thereby incurring additional fees or administrative work in some instances) and other issues that she thought were eliminated by using other paid professional services.

“It was extremely frustrating to be paying them money and still have to wonder if things were slipping through the cracks,” Ruzzi said of the experience. With her past success using AgentSync, the obvious answer was to fully utilize the groundbreaking solution available to Rhino. And, since Rhino was already spending money on less-than-ideal outside vendors, making the case to transition to AgentSync exclusively wasn’t too difficult. 

“When I brought up my AgentSync experience, my boss was just ecstatic,” Ruzzi said. “Not only because I was familiar with it and already knew how to use it, but also that it was going to enable me to just take the reins and own the licensing and renewals.”

With her eyes on the prize, Ruzzi began working towards full AgentSync integration at Rhino and the whole company officially switched over in February 2023.     

An instant improvement

“My job has gone from having to reach out constantly to producers and adjusters to get a piece of information or an answer to a question, to just being able to tell them to go check the AgentSync portal, give them a link, and let them handle updates themselves.” 

Lisa Ruzzi, Compliance Manager at Rhino

As soon as Rhino was up and running with AgentSync, this part of Ruzzi’s job became a lot more enjoyable. “Using the AgentSync platform has taken a huge burden off of my shoulders,” Ruzzi said. “Instead of having to go back and forth, gathering information from the agents over time, I have everything built into one place.”

Whereas before, Ruzzi spent time constantly reaching out to producers and adjusters to ask for information, with AgentSync, she only has to direct them to the portal and let them take care of any necessary updates themselves. Even if the producers don’t self-serve 100 percent of their license needs, Ruzzi said the time-savings on her side are still huge. “AgentSync saves me hours upon hours of time just by not having to repeatedly enter the same background check information into different state websites,” Ruzzi explains. Instead, she enters each producer’s national producer number and AgentSync populates most of the information for her. Then, she sends each producer a link to complete the rest of their background information. 

On top of the substantial time savings, managing licenses and renewals through AgentSync has been more cost-effective and has provided a more transparent view of where each producer and adjuster is in the process. The result is less headaches and fewer sleepless nights for Ruzzi, who no longer fears licenses are slipping through the cracks. 

“Using AgentSync absolutely relieves stress on my part,” Ruzzi said. “When you go to apply for a license you can see it’s pending, or if action’s required, it tells you what you actually need to do. It’s much better than the old way where you have to go on a wild goose chase to figure out which piece of information is missing before you can address it.” 

Flexibility to scale up and down with a click

Rhino may not be a super-sized insurance company with thousands of agents to manage, but like many startups, it has periods of expansion and contraction based on market and consumer demand. This makes the ability to quickly scale up and down a valuable feature.

Ruzzi describes how quickly she can get new producers licensed and, even more impressively, how she can make someone inactive (and active again) in just one click. This is incredibly helpful for an insurance agency to accommodate any influx of producers or adjusters. 

“AgentSync makes it so easy for us to bring on agents, and then if they no longer need to be licensed, it’s just a click of a button to make them inactive. This has really paid off when an agent leaves and comes back later. We just click to make them active again and they’re good to go. No one has to go through the onboarding process all over again.”

Lisa Ruzzi, Compliance Manager at Rhino

World class support

“The support at AgentSync is phenomenal. Whenever I reach out with a question, I’ll get detailed instructions, screenshots, articles on how to do it, or sometimes they just do it for me! There’s always going to be weird little issues with technology, but when they do come up the AgentSync team is always very quick to jump into fixing things and keep me up to date on the status.” 

Lisa Ruzzi, Compliance Manager at Rhino

Even though Ruzzi’s been using AgentSync for years, she still needs the occasional help. That’s where AgentSync’s “phenomenal” support team comes in. Ruzzi describes her experience with the best-in-class support team as nothing short of exceptional. “I’ve never been disappointed with the level of support,” Ruzzi said. “Whenever I need some help, whether it seems to me like the silliest question, or the most complex, everyone’s been super nice and great to work with.”

How AgentSync helps Rhino

• Simplifies producer and adjuster licenses and renewals from multiple vendors into a single source that can be managed in-house.
• Reduces costs and eliminates risks associated with lapsed licenses and missed renewal deadlines. 
• Creates a transparent, real-time view into each producer and adjuster’s license status with easy-to-address action items, when needed. 
• Provides an exceptional user experience for producers, adjusters, and compliance staff, helping Rhino attract talent in an industry that often puts heavy manual burdens on these roles.